Requests by Three Defendants Rejected; Witnesses Testify Under Coercion

Reliable Jewish sources reported late this afternoon on the proceedings today on the opening day of the trial of nine Soviet Jews in Leningrad. They included three of the defendants: Grigory Ilya (Hillel) Butman, whose request that two Jewish prisoners, David Iserovich Chernoglaz and Arkady Voloshin, be permitted to testify for him was refused; Lassal Kaminsky, who complained he had not received packages sent to him; and Lev Naumovich Yagman, whose request for a book by the late Zionist Revisionist leader Vladimir Jabotinsky, was denied. Witnesses named Knapov, Shlimovitz and Goldfeld said they were testifying against the defendants under coercion. A witness named Terobinetz, however, was said by the Jewish sources to have refused to testify under coercion.